Britain’s first Local Road Safety Index launches as children head back to school

More than half-a-million (557,200) collisions have taken place on local roads within a 500 metre radius of British schools in the past six years, resulting in 85,814 child casualties (fatal, seriously injured and slightly injured).

As the new school year approaches, AXA Car Insurance and Road Safety Analysis – a leading provider of road safety research and evaluation services – have launched Britain’s first Local Road Safety Index. It will help parents better understand the risks associated with the roads around their local schools to keep their children safe.

The Local Road Safety Index has been developed by analysing a total of 200,000 pieces of data relating to the immediate areas surrounding Britain’s 29,142 schools. This data reveals the total number of collisions and casualties in these areas, including children and adults, and if they were pedestrians, cyclists or vehicle occupants.

A recent report by AXA Car Insurance revealed that almost nine out of ten (86 per cent)* parents want the ability to access road safety information relating to their local school area, yet there was previously nothing to enable them to do so. Today’s Local Road Safety Index provides parents, schools and local authorities with the information they need to understand how safe – or not – their local roads are. It will also help to develop and tailor road safety education while determining the specific road infrastructure required – such as speed bumps, crossings or other road calming measures – to further reduce collisions and casualties.

The data, relating to the 500 metre radius around British schools and covering the last six years, revealed some concerning statistics, which can be broken down by local authority, region, and city:

Overall, there have been 557,200 vehicle collisions
There are, on average, six collisions per school per year
37 per cent of local school areas have had at least one child casualty each year
85,814 children have been casualties on local roads around British schools – equating to as many as 1,190 every month
Fortunately, 5,831 schools (20 per cent) have reported no child casualties in the past six years

Further Analysis – regional snapshot

Collisions

Nationally, there have been an average of 37.1 collisions within 500 metres of British schools within the past six years.

There are some significant differences from city to city. The roads around Nottingham schools for example, have an average of seven road collisions per year whereas those in Swansea have just two. Roads around London’s top ten for collision rates see an average of almost nine collisions per year, believed to be at least partly because of their position in relation to busy areas.

Child casualties

Some of the lowest child casualty rates on British roads within 500 metres of schools were found in Swansea and Cardiff, with 3.6 and 3.3 incidents in the last six years, respectively.

However, Manchester and Liverpool local roads faired the worst with 7 and 6.8 child casualties in the past six years – more than one child per school area, per year. Considering there are 201 schools in Manchester alone, it equates to more than 1,000 in the past six years.

London

In the past six years within a 500m radius of London schools, there were 11,181 child road casualties (13 per cent of the national figure) and 121,795 road collisions (22 per cent of the national figure).

Considering London has a very different road network and geographical challenges than other cities around Britain, only three cities (Liverpool, Nottingham and Manchester) would appear in the top ten list of London Boroughs with the highest number of road collisions per school, considering the past six years. Liverpool, with 56.5 road injuries per 500 metre radius around schools, would feature fifth behind Kensington and Chelsea (57.5), Islington (67.1), Lambeth (71.9) and Westminster (89.8).

However, just two London Boroughs (Barking and Dagenham – 5.9, and Newham – 5.3) would get in the top ten cities in Britain for the highest child casualty rates considering the same distance and timeframe. Newham has the same road child casualty rate as Nottingham (5.9 in the past six years) and is higher than Bolton, Derby, Sheffield and many other cities across Britain.